THE teenager admits he has football to thank for saving him from drink, drugs and gangs.

DYLAN MCGEOUCH insists a broken jaw isn’t going to derail his journey from a Glasgow housing scheme to making it big with Celtic.

The Hoops kid’s rapid recovery from a horror injury sustained in pre-season against Real Madrid was nothing compared to the battle he faced to beat the mean streets of his youth.

It’s
there where his ball skills were matched by a survival instinct to dribble his way past the pitfalls of drink, drugs and gang fights to become a success at Parkhead.

The 19-year-old has seen so many
of his peers and former team-mates follow the path to self-destruction but his desire to dodge that route has helped drive him on.

He
said: “There were people when I was younger, friends, guys I played with during a spell at Rangers and elsewhere, who took to drink and drugs, got caught up in gang fights and went down the wrong way.

“So it’s good to take the right path and do well at the football and steer away from all that.

“I was quite disciplined when I was younger. My dad’s from the schemes as well and was quite rough when he was younger.

“He didn’t want his kids to be like that so his mindset was that it’s okay to go out but don’t get caught up in stupid stuff.

“In his mind I had a talent and he wanted me to use it. He’s taught us well because I played with a lot of players who seemed to be the next big thing but didn’t progress and that’s sad to see.”

Dylan McGeouch

The Scotland Under-21 star’s surge to first-team prominence at Parkhead last
term proved that the swagger instilled on the streets is being used as a
force of good.

And McGeouch isn’t the first to break free from the same Glasgow scheme which reared Kenny Dalglish and Frank McAvennie.

He
said: “I speak to older people who say boys from the schemes are always
a bit different from the boys who come from wealthy families.

“They’re still good players but the boys from the schemes are a bit more streetwise.

“I can see what they mean – the scheme boys are rough and ready and gallus, confident.

“I come from Possil but stay in Milton. I get the McAvennie and Dalglish thing all the time.

“I’m proud of where I came from and a lot of people from where I’m from are proud of me too.”

McGeouch
is one of a select band of players to have crossed the Old Firm divide twice after leaving Celtic as a teenager to sign for Rangers in a show of loyalty to his older brother Darren.

He said: “We’re a Celtic family and Darren wasn’t getting on with a youth coach so decided to move.

“As a family it was decided that I should move as well. It was hard to leave the club I supported but it’s worked out well.

“I
went to Rangers then came back to Celtic. A lot of people said I was lucky with the way Rangers have gone. But I just made my move then a few
months later all the stuff happened. It was sad to see.”

The
midfielder still recoils at the thought of being stretchered off after a
clash of with Real’s Nuri Sahin in Philadelphia but he insists there are no mental scars.

He said: “I don’t think about it anymore, I get stuck in during training and go for headers. But that’s just my mentality to get steamed in.”

McGeouch has been part of the Scotland Under-21 squad in Marbella this week and he hopes the trip will help him return to the peak of his powers.